


Skimming the Surface

by bubblegum1425



Series: Bubble's Hunger Games Drabbles [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Canon Related, F/M, Fluffy niceness, Post-Canon, Post-Mockingjay, Pregnant Katniss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 06:57:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3560378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblegum1425/pseuds/bubblegum1425
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta Mellark wakes up one night a little less than 15 years after the events of Mockingjay and grabs his sketchbook...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skimming the Surface

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble I wrote for jamiesommers23. Thank you to my two lovely betas, titania522 and peetabreadgirl, for your wonderful work

**Peeta**

Peeta awoke with a start, a shiver running down his spine as the cold, winter air ghosted over his exposed skin.  For a second, he couldn’t register why he was freezing.  Even though he’d only pulled his sleep pants on after he and Katniss had made love before bed, usually her heat was enough to keep him warm the entire night, no matter how wide he left the windows open.  He turned towards Katniss in confusion, a soft laugh escaping him when he saw her.  

She was sprawled out, the pillow she’d placed between her legs to keep herself from turning in the night still in place, but her legs were askew around it.  A foot was tangled heavily in the cover and sheets she’d somehow managed to kick off during the night, the clear culprit as to why he was cold.  Somehow Peeta didn’t mind, knowing how hot she got at night now.  His eyes lighted over his wife’s body, pleased to see that peaceful calm, an infrequent visitor to their nights, graced her sleeping features.  

Her dark hair was strewn around her head like a halo, and his fingers itched to run through her thick waves.  The cotton shirt that she’d stolen out of his drawer had ridden up high enough to expose one breast, her nipple dark against her lighter olive skin, and his cock twitched when he realized she hadn’t bothered to put on any underwear.  One arm was stretched out towards him, her hand resting as though she were waiting for him to slide his own in, the other clasped over the barely visible swell of her stomach.  Peeta’s eyes lingered there for a long moment, a smile bursting onto his face.  That little bump gave him a greater happiness than he’d ever known, a gift he’d never thought Katniss would be willing to give.  

He’d known her reluctance to have children long before their toasting, that wonderful day they’d bound themselves to one another officially for all time, and he’d accepted she might never be ready.  Nearly fifteen years had passed since their marriage ceremony, and in the few times the possibility of a baby had come up in that interval, Katniss had always reacted the same way, adamantly frightened that she could not carry a child into a world that had taken so much from her.  

So when she’d come to him weeks ago, terrified elation on her face, the possibility of a pregnancy hadn’t even entered Peeta’s head.  His smile broadened as he remembered Katniss’ grin over his utter shock at the news, and her laughter as he spun her around the kitchen before setting her down so that he could kiss her.  They’d nearly broken the table with their celebratory love making.  As much as Peeta wished it, things hadn’t been quite as easy since then.  

The news that a baby would be joining them in the spring hadn’t stopped his flashbacks from sometimes taking hold, though they were still thankfully so much less than when he’d returned from the Capitol long ago.  The tidings hadn’t ended the occasional bouts of depression Katniss sunk into either, and her fears for this new helpless life that she would be responsible for were sometimes more than she could handle.  And the nightmares would never fully end.  It was a fact both of them knew all too well.

But they also had each other, bound together since they were both eleven, when he’d tossed those burnt loaves of bread into the rain to save her, though they hadn’t known it then.  They knew it now, though sometimes he felt Katniss forgot it when her terrors took hold.

Peeta bent down to place a kiss in Katniss’ open palm before he flicked the small lamp on his nightstand on and reached into a drawer to pull out a small notebook.  He studied her quietly, making sure there was no disturbance to her sleep from the light, and began to sketch.  

**Katniss**

Katniss woke up slowly, feeling like she was boiling, and wondered groggily how a baby that was probably no more than the size of a bean could wreak so much havoc on her body.  Confusion rippled through her when she saw the light glowing from behind her still closed eyelids and realized Peeta must be awake for some reason.  As she opened her eyes, she froze, thankful that she hadn’t moved yet.  Katniss so rarely saw her husband the way he was now, unaware that she was watching him as he sketched her.  

She gazed at his face closely as his stare followed the lines of her body, acutely aware of the fact that her shirt had ridden so far up she might as well have been naked, but it wasn’t something Katniss felt ashamed of.  When their relationship was still so fragile, those first years after Panem had been made anew, when they had still been growing back together, she might have felt that way, but at this point, Peeta knew her body just as well as she did.  So, instead, she reveled in the furious concentration his eyes always took on when he was drawing, remembering the long ago days when she’d watched him paint in her plant book.  

His eyelashes were still long, radiant in the sun, but made softer in the light of the dim lamp on their nightstand, and his pupils were as dark and vast as the deepest depths of the sea.  But the blue surrounding them was as limitless as the sky, and Katniss never ceased to be arrested by them.  She could see the innumerable, mysterious worlds that Peeta lived in when he sketched reflected in his shining eyes.  Some were terrible, containing echos of the hardships they had endured, and some were amazing, harkenings of a joyous future.  But no matter what, they were always wondrous.  Katniss oftentimes wished to join him in those places, feeling as though she had just begun skimming the surface of all that he was, but she always reminded herself she had an entire lifetime and beyond to find all of those secrets.  

Those eyes were where her heart and soul had come to rest, where she had finally found the hope she needed to survive, and the courage to have the little one now growing inside her.  They were here home, the place where love was always present, and the word ‘real’ meant everything to the both of them.  

“Are you cold?” he asked suddenly, startling her.  Judging from the smile on his face, he’d caught her staring at him quite a while ago.  She laughed.  

“No, I’m burning up,” Katniss replied.  She glanced over at the window and saw it was closed, turning back to him with raised brows.  “Were you cold?”  

Peeta nodded sheepishly.  “I didn’t want to disturb you, but the sheets looked a little difficult to untangle,” he said, pointing down to the foot that Katniss now noticed was the only thing keeping their covers on the bed.  “So I shut the window.”  He ran his fingers lightly along her arm.  Katniss shivered from the feeling, an amused expression crossing Peeta’s face as she did so.

“You sure you aren’t cold?” he teased, a finger now directed towards her nipples, which had peaked into tight buds at his touch.  Katniss did not answer but rather sat up swiftly and pushed her husband down onto his back, swinging herself over to straddle his hips as he laughed.  She grabbed the sketchpad still in his hands to see what he had drawn, shaking her head when she got a good look at it.

“I still can’t believe you see me this way,” she whispered, staring at the image of the woman laying asleep on her bed.  There was more serenity and beauty in this woman’s face than she’d ever seen in the mirror.  The scars that appeared traced along one side of her body were more like delicate lace than the thickened skin she hated to look at.  And the woman’s hand resting protectively over her abdomen brought her to tears.  She moved her hand up her body from the bed to mimic the drawing.  Peeta placed his on top of hers.  

“I always see you that way, Katniss.  Our daughter will too.”  

"Our daughter?”  

Peeta nodded and replied confidently, “Daughter.”  Katniss noticed the bright happiness of his eyes as he said that.  

_Skimming the surface of all that he was._

The thought echoed inside Katniss’ head, joy bubbling suddenly inside her at the realization of the new horizon before them and the new layer of him she was going to get to see.  Things might never be perfect, but she would always have him.

She was ready.


End file.
